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December 13, 2005

Potent commentary on snitching

Thanks to this post at the always interesting Grits for Breakfast, I see that Prof. Alexandra Natapoff over at Slate has this strong piece about snitching entitled "Bait and Snitch: The high cost of snitching for law enforcement." Here's a small sample of a piece that merits a full read:

Snitching thus puts us right through the looking glass: Criminals direct police investigations while avoiding arrest and punishment. Nevertheless, snitching is ever more popular with law enforcement: It is easier to "flip" defendants and turn them into snitches than it is to fight over their cases. For a criminal system that has more cases than it can litigate, and more defendants than it can incarcerate, snitching has become a convenient case-management tool for an institution that has bitten off more than it can chew.